George Smith (chemist)

George Smith
Born George Pearson Smith[1]
(1941-03-10) March 10, 1941
Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S.
Residence Columbia, Missouri
Education
Known for Phage displays
Spouse(s) Marjorie Sable[2]
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Thesis The variation and adaptive expression of antibodies. (1970)
Doctoral advisor Edgar Haber

George Pearson Smith (born March 10, 1941)[3][4] is an American biologist and Nobel laureate.[5] He is a Curators' Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.

Career

Born in Norwalk, Connecticut, he earned his A.B. degree from Haverford College in biology, was a high school teacher and lab technician for a year, and earned his Ph.D. degree in bacteriology and immunology from Harvard University.[6] He was a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin (with future Nobel laureate Oliver Smithies) before moving to Columbia, Missouri and joining the University of Missouri faculty in 1975. He spent the 1983–1984 academic year at Duke University with Robert Webster where he began the work that led to him being awarded a Nobel Prize.[7][8][9][2][10]

He is best known for phage display, a technique where a specific protein sequence is artificially inserted into the coat protein gene of a bacteriophage, causing the protein to expressed on the outside of the bacteriophage. Smith first described the technique in 1985 when he displayed peptides on filamentous phage by fusing the peptide of interest onto gene III of filamentous phage.[8] He won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work, sharing his prize with Greg Winter and Frances Arnold.

Smith is an advocate for equal rights for Palestinians and Israeli Jews in their common homeland, and a strong supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.[11]

Awards and honors

  • 2000 University of Missouri Curators' Professor[12]
  • 2001 Elected Fellow – AAAS[12]
  • 2007 Promega Biotechnology Research Award[13]
  • 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Greg Winter and Frances Arnold[14]

References

  1. ↑ "Novelty Reigns at Bridal in Maryland". New York Times. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  2. 1 2 Williams, Mará Rose. "'My first standing ovation': Humble MU professor cheered after winning Nobel Prize". Kansas City Star. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  3. ↑ "George P. Smith – Facts – 2018". NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB. 6 October 2018. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
  4. ↑ https://www.npr.org/2018/10/03/653915709/nobel-prize-in-chemistry-honors-the-power-of-evolution
  5. ↑ "Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018 – live". Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  6. ↑ Smith, George Pearson (1971). The variation and adaptive expression of antibodies (Ph.D.). Harvard University. OCLC 76998014 – via ProQuest. (Subscription required (help)).
  7. ↑ "Tropical and Molecular Parasitology Seminar Series". Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  8. 1 2 Smith GP (June 1985). "Filamentous fusion phage: novel expression vectors that display cloned antigens on the virion surface". Science. 228 (4705): 1315–7. Bibcode:1985Sci...228.1315S. doi:10.1126/science.4001944. PMID 4001944.
  9. ↑ "2018 Nobel Prize winner did much of his work at Duke University". Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  10. ↑ Phage Display of Peptides and Proteins: A Laboratory Manual. Academic Press, Inc. 1996. ISBN 0-12-402380-0.
  11. ↑ Kaplan Sommer, Allison (October 3, 2018). "Nobel Prize Winner George P. Smith Is a Longtime pro-Palestine, BDS Activist". Haaretz. Tel Aviv. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  12. 1 2 "George Smith". University of Missouri. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  13. ↑ "Promega Award Laureates". American Society For Microbiology. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  14. ↑ "Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to 3 Scientists for Using Evolution in Design of Molecules". NYT. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
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